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CBASA Senate Inquiry: 26/09/23 - Brisvegas Hearing, Hansard etc.

Listen live now: Senate Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements Committee - Brisbane

New submissions, including one from the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (PDF 20508 KB):

The Civil Aviation Authority of the State of Qatar (QCAA) extends its compliments to the Select
Committee on Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements, and would like to provide our
written submission on the importance of the Qatar-Australia bilateral air services agreement (ASA).

At the outset we would like to stress that QCAA has worked tirelessly to achieve a liberal aviation
regime between Qatar and Australia. Since 2005, we have consistently requested to the
Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts (the
"Department") to enhance the traffic rights between our two States. We have done so because we
firmly believe that greater connectivity will support trade and tourism opportunities, benefit
consumers and cement our economic and cultural ties.

We have worked closely with many countries and regions to achieve a liberal aviation framework,
for example, in 2021, we concluded a liberal agreement with the European Commission and the 27
Member States of the European Union; in 2022, we concluded the ratification procedures of our
"Open Skies" Agreement with the United States; and we have similar liberal agreements with other
important aviation markets including the United Kingdom and Singapore.

In each of the above cases there have been concerns raised by some of the stakeholders in those
countries. But in every case, we have worked with our counterparts in the various regulatory
agencies to demonstrate our commitment to transparency and to the gradual realization of a more
liberal aviation framework. Our agreements allow for Consultations and Dispute Settlement
Mechanisms, and in the case of the EU, we reached a new milestone and included a forum for
regular meetings to address issues and potential differences (Joint Committee) and Arbitration
provisions, which provide certainty to all stakeholders that we will ensure an open and fair
competitive environment. All these measures have been successful.

In this same spirit, we agreed to a new Safeguards Clause in the Qatar-Australia ASA, even though,
according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO}, such level of safeguard provisions
are only relevant and applicable in liberalized, even if not fully open skies agreements, and are
hardly justifiable in a restricted agreement, with limited capacity and frequencies.

We also accepted this Safeguard Clause because we were confidants that this would provide
assurance to the Australian regulators that their consumers would enjoy the benefits of greater
competition, including lower fares and more travel options, while at the same time protecting
national interests and ensuring stability in the Australian market for international travel.

We strongly believe, the current provisions of the ASA offer the platform to move forward in the
bilateral aviation relations between Qatar and Australia by allowing airlines to decide the number
of flights as needed by the market demand. Increasing the capacity entitlements will not damage
competition in the Australian market, but would rather improve it for the benefit of the consumers.

The amended agreement embraces robust fair competition and safeguards provisions; and
ensures that our designated airline will be subject to additional competition rules, as well as strict
conditions and requirements regarding its operations to Australia. We can confirm that under these
provisions, embedded in the Qatar-Australia ASA, the Australian government can evaluate and
study the operations of Qatar's flag carrier serving the Australian market, including:

• fares, charges and rates offered to the public,
• number of frequencies and capacity deployed in measure with competition,
• points served behind and beyond Australia,
• Qatar Airways published annual audited financial statements, and
• abuse of dominant position.

We can confidently affirm, that no other country in the GCC region has included such strict
conditions and requirements regarding fair competition in their bilateral agreement with Australia.

Unfortunately, despite we have reached such an aspirational fair competition clause that
safeguards operations, still our national carrier has not been granted with additional frequencies.

In light of the recent decision made by the Department on 14 July 2023 to reject our requests for
additional flights, which was presented through our formal letter ref. no. 2022/Out/06017/PO, dated
16 August 2022, we have officially requested consultations under Article 16 (Consultations) of the
ASA through letter ref. no. 2023/Out/04289 dated 14 August 2023 to better understand the reasons
for their decision and to work together with the Department to build a road map for future
enhancements of traffic rights.

On 25 August 2023, the Department informed us that our request for consultations was under
consideration and indicated that they would respond as soon as possible. We sincerely hope that
the Department will agree to schedule consultations as a matter of urgency and priority.

The Australian Government's National Aviation Policy (2009) clearly calls for a review of the
bilateral agreements with foreign countries to ensure that capacity available "remains ahead of
demand so that airlines are free to make commercial decisions about the frequency and types of
services they operate", however, the allocation of traffic rights to Qatar does not reflect the intent
of the above statement.

The following illustration describes a timeline of the traffic rights growth into Australia's main
gateways:



We support greater connectivity with Australia as one of the pillars of the emerging global economy
and look forward to a resilient partnership between our two countries. Therefore, we look forward
to a positive consideration from the Department to grant the State of Qatar:

• The requested additional 28 weekly frequencies to the Australian main gateways, whilst
increasing the cap to 14 weekly frequencies to each main gateway; and
• The requested additional 7 weekly frequencies to the secondary airports via and/or
beyond Australian main gateways under the regional package.

To demonstrate our longstanding commitment to liberalization in international aviation we have
included below, an oveNiew of our requests for consultations and request for additional traffic rights
since 2005, and the responses that we have received from the Australian Authorities.

 

Perth Hearing Hansard - HERE.

5 Document from Civil Air, tabled at public hearing on 22 September 2023

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